Schrodinger - The Cat

We have the greatest and strangest cat.

I am not a cat person... at all. I like other people's cats, but never wanted one of my own. Well, then Alex and I bought a house. It was nearly a hundred years old and was not what you would call a tight house. Our heating bills were atrocious. So, we knew we had leaks. Shortly after moving in, we began to discover mouse droppings. So, I went and bought some mouse traps and Alex set them out. Days went by and we kept finding droppings, but did not catch any mice. So, I bought more traps. This was before we had children, so I was at war. Our house was a gauntlet of traps. Still we did not catch anything.

One morning I woke up and watched a mouse the size of a hamster walk across the middle of the floor and help itself to the dog's dish. When it saw me, it calmly walked back across the middle of the floor and disappeared down the cold air return. I was furious. I told Alex that if he did not figure out where they were coming in, I was either getting a cat or moving out.

Well then I was baking, and accidentally dropped my mixer cord on one of the many traps set along our counter. The trap did not spring. It turned out, we had about 25 faulty traps set all over our house. So, I went out and bought different traps. We caught about a dozen mice over the next couple days. And those were just the mice we caught in traps. Alex also stabbed one with a sword, and rifle butted one in the middle of the night (good story). We continued catching the occasional mouse in our house for the next 2 years before finding and sealing every crack in the foundation of our house.

All this time, I stayed strong, and did not get a cat. I really did not want a cat in the house. And I knew, living on a busy road, that getting an outdoor cat would be killing a cat. But Alex and I knew that as soon as we moved to the country, we would adopt a cat.

Well, we finally moved, and went on craigslist looking for free kittens. We selected ourselves a friendly little orange kitty, and named him Schrödinger, after the scientist. And what a cat he is!

Schrodey loves our son... our son who carries him around by his head and throws him. This poor cat has endured great abuse at the hands of my children. Anyone who has talked to me on the phone for more than 5 minutes, has probably heard me yell, "put the cat down!" But this cat loves my kids, particularly Micah.

He is a very social kitty. He sits and looks in our window at night, just to be near us. And in the dead of winter, he even followed the dog around the yard just to be with someone. When we come home, he meets us halfway down the driveway, so he can get in our car and ride in our laps.

Don't be fooled, though. This is not a wannabe pampered house cat. He's a vicious king of the forest... a mighty hunter. I refuse to watch him hunt, because I've seen him catch an animal, let it go, and recatch it countless times just for fun. It gives new meaning to the phrase "animal cruelty."

Like any good hunter, he brings his spoils to his family. I have found gifts of all sorts on my porch: hearts, livers, heads, feet... The most memorable was a rabbit the size of the cat, with its head missing. He catches squirrels frequently too, and brings us the tails. Just yesterday, he ate a rabbit almost as big as he is, and this morning he is laying around on the porch moaning. He's still a small kitty... though today he has a bulging belly. We have an owl living in our back yard, and we used to worry that it might go after our kitty. Now, I'm pretty sure that if that owl goes after our cat, we will find a headless owl on our porch in the morning.

I still do not consider myself a cat person, but I have become very attached to this mighty hunter/sweet little orange kitty.